Tag: Todd Snyder

Fallin’ for fall

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

When I shop for clothes, I wait till summer. That’s when the fall lines drop, filling catalogs with browns and blacks and blues and grays — my kind of shades.

Already I’ve bought a brown corduroy collar shirt and three sweatshirts of various styles, two in black and one in “midnight,” a charcoal-blue that exudes a singular mystery. Of course it will be two months before I can wear any of it. Still, fall rules. Off with t-shirts, shorts and the stumpy, undignified socks that go with them. And, as the heavens part and angels sing: no flip-flops, or what I call satan’s hooves.

What I really want now in this autumn urge is the pair of black and olive Todd Snyder sneakers I keep eyeballing online. But they are scandalously overpriced and it’s breaking my heart. (Hello, GoFundMe.) I also need a mid-weight coat, since my few jackets hit their expiration dates when “Gilmore Girls” aired on The WB.  

The coat is crucial. I go to London for a week in early November and I basically refuse to wear my nearly moth-eaten Barbour quilted jacket, despite its lingering suavity. It’s old and boring, having completed tours of duty around the world, fighting for my right to party. It’s time for an honorable discharge.

Rain. London can be lousy with it, though November temperatures hover in the 50s, which is my barometrical bag. So I need a coat that’s mid-weight and fairly water-resistant. 

Where I’m at right now it’s 82 degrees and pouring rain — the midsummer soak. It sort of reminds me of the jacket I need. Chances are another Barbour, the classic British brand with James Bondian connotations (see: “Skyfall”). This is especially true since I’ll be in London, the obvious spot to look for a new Barbour, which should be plentiful and cheaper.

Unless we’re talking books, I am no shopaholic. Malls and shopping districts zombify me. I am definitely no clothes horse — more like a clothes donkey, procuring a couple pieces a year and perhaps a pair of sneakers. I read no fashion magazines. I can’t tell Dior from Gucci and don’t care. I peruse three or four online catalogs with more of a glancing interest, pshaw, than sweaty-palmed voracity. 

When I buy something, I try to make it count. Too often, though, I get a shirt, say, and months later it’s in the Salvation Army or Veteran’s pile, worn once or twice with gathering disappointment. And so savvy curation is paramount. Those Todd Snyder sneakers noted above? I have a creeping sensation they wouldn’t work out even if I could justify their pornographic price tag and see for myself. 

Clothes, like most purchases, are a gamble. (Look at the snaking returns line for Amazon products at Whole Foods — capitalistic carnage.) I fiendishly acquire books and, frankly, half are duds or don’t meet the hype. (That’s me, third in line at Whole Foods.)

Coupling is hard. Ask any character in any rom-com, dimples be damned. I think I’m having a tumultuous relationship with the thick, long-sleeve polo shirt I bought last year that’s this close to winding up in the Goodwill racks. We’ve lost that lovin’ feeling. It’s a nice fall shirt that cost a pretty penny, and it’s going cheap. 

Anyone?

Watching it

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

My wrists are boldly bare of beads, bands or bangles. I haven’t worn a watch in too many years to count. Bracelets, even the hippie/friendship kind, are no longer my style. And it’s alien when they snap on those paper wristbands at concerts and parties; I suddenly feel over-accessorized, or worse, like an inpatient. 

In my early world travels, I would sport a cheap little watch (a Casio, I think) before I owned a cell phone. Prior to that, I wore nothing on my wrists, unless you count the spiked leather bands we’d strap on as teens at metal shows, and I’d rather not.

The other day, however, I was transfixed by a banner ad for a watch. Granted, it was for an aggressively blue Swatch, which I knew I wouldn’t pursue, but it unfurled a vista I haven’t taken in for a very long time. A watch. How novel. I mused: Is it, um, time?

I suddenly became perversely excited for something as dully utilitarian as a … wristwatch. Like the time I just had to have this pair of Italian sneakers, or got an irrational urge to go to China (which I did, and I’m glad). Every once in a while, I can get almost maniacally materialistic: I must have that — now! And so, quite obsessively, I plunged into the world of watches. 

Down the rabbit hole I went, heedless, with fierce attention to fashion and function, while avoiding the bejeweled Omega and Rolex price brackets (rackets), as well as over-compensating smartwatches. With watches, I’m strictly a dilettante, not Flavor Flav. A couple hundred bucks, tops, maybe a mite more. And hold the bells and whistles. I’m also not an astronaut.  

After some initial scouring of mostly lame watches, including a bizarre glut of Snoopy timepieces, I spotted a handsome Timex, black brushed metal with a brown leather strap, at upscale men’s fashion outlet Todd Snyder. The piece is sporty, hip, sleek.

I bought it. I got it. It failed. 

I have spectacularly small wrists, roughly the circumference of kindling, and the 41mm watch face looked like a Chips Ahoy! cookie on my arm. Mammoth. It made me sad (and hungry).

Lesson learned — hopes burned — I began searching for 36mm to 38mm sizes, anything that wouldn’t look like a hubcap on my wrist. But these sizes are relatively scarce, so I couldn’t be picky. Yet I was coming across butt-fugly contraptions barnacled with dials and buttons and faces so complex, night vision goggles are required. I wasn’t joining the Navy Seals.

And then, there it was. A classically simple, elegantly plain analog watch, subtle and smallish, with a handsome olive green face and gold hands and digits and a tasteful black strap. It’s also a Timex, released in collaboration with Todd Snyder, an exclusive limited edition, and thus a few more dollars than I wanted to spend. It’s on its way as I type this. It better kill.

The hours spent shopping for a watch were exhausting and preposterous, and I only found two I liked. But shopping is a contact sport — mean, raw, intense. Be it looking for a Honda or a house, you scour and winnow and balance a mountain of variables (unless you’re shopping for a loaf of bread, say, and then the drama drops significantly). It can be arduous, but it’s also fun, because buying stuff is fun. I think this new toy will fit the bill. Just watch.

  • Update: The watch arrived today. It’s the size of a hubcap.